A computer network includes various digital devices. A digital device may be an application-specific hardware device or a generic machine. Examples of application-specific hardware devices include a hardware router, a hardware firewall, and a hardware network address translator (NAT). A generic machine may execute various virtual machines and/or software applications. Digital devices within a computer network are connected by one or more links. Examples of links include a coaxial cable, an unshielded twisted cable, a copper cable, and an optical fiber.
Link performance may degrade due to a change in physical properties of the link (e.g., physical properties of cables and/or fibers). An error on any one of the links may affect the throughput of data traffic in a computer network. The error may cause the data traffic to become corrupted and/or lost. Examples of errors include: a loss of continuity within a particular link; a disconnection between a particular link and an digital device; and attention, dispersion, or other loss within a particular link that is above an acceptable threshold.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.